


At the End of Our Time

by leftofrevolution



Series: Shall Stand Alone [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 16:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8998669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftofrevolution/pseuds/leftofrevolution
Summary: He met Captain Niriz of the Admonitor and Captain Parck of the Impervious—Thrawn’s second and third, respectively—in quick succession immediately upon disembarking from the shuttle onto the Admonitor. Maul would not have, truth be told, been able to tell them apart—both middle-aged, pale-skinned male humans with brown hair and identical uniforms—if it weren’t for the distinct spike of distaste that went through Niriz upon Thrawn introducing them.





	

He met Captain Niriz of the _Admonitor_ and Captain Parck of the _Impervious_ —Thrawn’s second and third, respectively—in quick succession immediately upon disembarking from the shuttle onto the _Admonitor_. Maul would not have, truth be told, been able to tell them apart—both middle-aged, pale-skinned male humans with brown hair and identical uniforms—if it weren’t for the distinct spike of distaste that went through Niriz upon Thrawn introducing them.

The distaste was not surprising; some variety of disgust or fear emanated from nearly all of the (entirely human) crew that was assembled to greet them. Imperials were xenophobic, as a rule, and he hadn’t anticipated that these would be any different even if their admiral was a non-human. What _did_ surprise was the fact that he felt nothing from Parck but a polite interest, though perhaps it shouldn’t have; by the personnel files Thrawn had sent him, Parck had been working in the Unknown Regions since before Empire Day and had known Thrawn nearly as long, while Niriz and his ship had been assigned to Thrawn’s fleet within the past year.

Niriz, to his credit, did actually seemed to put some effort into suppressing his instinctive reaction and managed to have none of it show on his face when he nodded in Maul’s direction. Maul had expected at least that much. Thrawn, of all Imperials, would be the last person to tolerate outright xenophobia in his second. Maul still had to resist the urge to do something petty—staring without blinking for minutes at a time seemed to be universally unnerving to humans—but if he were to be living on the _Admonitor_ for the foreseeable future, he would just as soon not gain the dislike of its commanding officer over what was, all told, a fairly minor reaction.

He had grown used to Manda'yaim. That was all.

It was a few minutes of walking to the conference room, where along with a diverse array of food, there were two members of Thrawn’s species waiting for them when they arrived. The female wore black and had the poise that spoke of her being military, the male dark red with more relaxed posture. While the male Maul would guess to be around Thrawn’s age—and seemed, even to Maul’s eye untrained in differentiating Chiss, oddly similar to Thrawn in features, for all he was of a darker complexion and wore his hair long—the female appeared younger by at least a decade, if not more, with a long, thin face and an aquiline nose.

Thrawn introduced them with a smile as soon as everyone was seated as, “Syndic Mitth'ras'safis of the Eighth Ruling Family and Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo of the Third Ruling Family. Both of the Chiss Ascendency. Syndic Mitth'ras'safis is the Ascendency’s liaison to the Empire during the current crisis,” the male Chiss nodded gracefully, for some reason radiating vague amusement, “and Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo is leader of the Ascendency forces assigned to deal with the Far Outsider threat.” The female Chiss’s nod was more of a jerk of the head, though Maul could read nothing hostile about her.

Thrawn continued smoothly with, “And this is Lord Maul, with commanders Rook Kast, Gar Saxon, Xivin Rahl, Jedan Streng, and Tor Etiss of the Mandalorian special forces.” The Mando’ade removed their helmets as they were introduced, Rahl and Streng bother garnering double-takes from Niriz and a raised, interested eyebrow from Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo. Streng didn’t seem to take notice—though Maul knew him well enough to know that the obliviousness was studied—and focused instead on piling a plate full of food as well as he could with only one working arm, though Rahl turned and smiled at Niriz until the captain visibly colored and turned away.

“There will be time to socialize afterwards, of course,” said Thrawn, ignoring the goings on of the table, “But Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo expressed an interest in getting the debriefing over with while we eat so we have something productive to discuss afterwards.” He smiled in Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo’s direction and gestured towards the holoprojector in the middle of the table. “Commander.”

Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo nodded stiffly again—Maul was beginning to wonder if perhaps she just suffered from a chronic neck injury—and rose to her feet as Thrawn seated himself to Maul’s left. Maul studied Thrawn’s profile out of the corner of his eye as Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo began pressing buttons on the holoprojector controls.

He definitely was not imagining it; Thrawn’s resemblance to the Syndic was uncanny, and Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo’s features were distinct enough that he could not just dismiss it as the Chiss having unusual physical homogeneity. When Thrawn returned his glance, however—his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes in a way it had not when he had been making introductions—Maul turned his gaze to the projection without an answering look.

At first it was because he was irritated with himself; idle curiosity could not excuse ignoring intelligence on the enemy. However, the reason for his studied scrutiny quickly shifted to puzzlement; the figure being projected in the middle of the table seemed oddly familiar. Around the table, several people shifted, the Mando’ade all forward in fascination.

“This is a Far Outsider of what we believe to be their soldier caste,” said Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo, her Basic heavily accented to lend her harsh consonants a buzzing sound that Thrawn’s lacked. Despite that, she was obviously fluent, as there was no halting in her speech as she continued with, “This is largely a guess; we have seen only a few Far Outsiders who do not closely mimic this physical form, but those were unarmored and unarmed, so it is for right now the theory under which we are operating. All members of the species we have seen, however, are similarly ritualistically mutilated. From what we know of their culture, this has religious significance to them. We have as of yet been unable to ascertain anything more specific.

“They are humanoid, as you can see, but they average over two meters tall. Their engagements with both Chiss and Imperial forces on the ground have shown them to be extremely brutal and effective fighters. If they are not spotted at great range, whenever either Chiss or Imperial forces have engaged them, we usually lose at least half a dozen soldiers for everyone one of theirs that falls. Their reflexes and strength are far beyond either Chiss or human normal, and they are seemingly immune to pain. Moreover, their equipment is unusual; their armor is resistant to even the strongest blaster fire—those that we have killed have been almost all due to artillery and explosives—and while their staves look simple enough-”

“They are alive,” Maul murmured.

Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo paused, looking at him. Then she turned to Thrawn. “You have already begun briefing them?” She sounded like she didn’t know whether to be annoyed or not.

Thrawn, for his part, shook his head, looking thoughtful. “No, Commander, I have not.” He shifted his gaze to Maul. “Lord Maul?”

Maul stared at the projection for a long moment. It had been decades, and he could no longer claim a perfect memory—there was too long a stretch of time he had tried too hard to forget—but as he went through a mental checklist, there was no denying that “I have seen one of these Far Outsiders before.”

Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo’s mildly perplexed look instantly cleared in favor of an intense, focused stare. “When? Where?”

Maul was suddenly aware of the entire table staring at him. Involuntarily, he felt his jaw clench. For another long moment, he said nothing.

It was not due to suddenly finding himself the center of attention. He knew how to speak in front of crowds well enough, for all that he had never liked it. But this… this _delsivan_ was asking him about one of his missions for his master, committed in the shadow of the Republic. He wasn’t to speak on those. Ever.

He should kill her and everyone here for even learning that much-

 _Don’t be stupid,_ said the more conscious part of his brain. _You’re dead to the Order. You owe it nothing. You owe_ him _less. Besides, you told Kast and Saxon about Sidious fifteen years ago. This is nothing compared to that._

Sometimes it still struck him as strange that he’d had to die in order to stop being a ghost.

Thrawn started to open his mouth—to say what, Maul did not know—but Maul cut him off with a look and said, steadily, “Twenty-eight years ago. On a space station prison in the Tharin sector of the Outer Rim. Cog Hive Seven. It was destroyed, but there may still be records.” He sincerely doubted it—Sidious was extremely thorough—but it wasn’t impossible.

Commander Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo seemed to think it was, but for other reasons. “The first records of the Far Outsiders entering our galaxy post-date that encounter by nearly a decade, and they have never left this region of space.” But she wasn’t so stupid as to dismiss him; despite her words, her eyes were narrowed at him thoughtfully.

Maul stared back at her, unblinking. “The staff spit poison that blinded and partially paralyzed its target. It operated independently of its wielder, and when left undirected, it attempted strangulation.”

The Chiss commander’s eyes widened, any doubt wiped from her expression. “You’ve seen a Far Outsider _fight_ , then.”

Maul nodded.

“And?”

Maul had to remind himself that Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo had met him all of ten minutes ago; at Maul’s right, he could already see Streng’s grin and the smirks of Kast and Saxon, with even Rahl raising an amused eyebrow (though Etiss was, as usual, borderline expressionless). He did not look at Thrawn. “Faster and stronger than human optimal. Extremely aggressive in its combat tactics; it seemed to assume its armor would protect it from most attacks. However, it had no armor protecting the neck or face, which left several vulnerabilities. Throat torn out slowed it down, impact with the floor was enough to break its neck, then piercing weapon through its eyes into its brain after it was paralyzed. Once its brain had been pierced, it died within five seconds.”

He watched Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo’s expression contort slightly as she processed what this new information meant, obviously remembering something as she did. Then she said, carefully, “Could you demonstrate at some later point?”

“If you have someone that tall,” Maul said blandly. He did not look at Streng, even when at least one Mando’ad quickly suppressed a laugh into their dinner.

\--*--

The meeting had been derailed—with Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo practically vibrating at the implications of a Far Outsider so distant in time and place from their previous data and seemingly eager to go confer with her subordinates about what it meant—to the point that Thrawn called for the commander to continue her presentation at some later date and adjourned the meeting.

Everyone except Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo and Niriz lingered a little longer, the Mando’ade at least loathe to leave food uneaten on the table. It did not take long, however, before Streng—having devoured three bowls of stew and a full loaf of flatbread—said, “ _Alor_ , you’ve got to tell us; one of us versus one of these Far Outsiders. How do we stack up?”

Maul thought about it for a moment, chewing on a bite of Fregeni. The fight had been nearly three decades ago, while his most recent spar with a Mando’ad supercommando had been less than four months ago, and he had no real idea of the difference in his combat skill between then and now.

That being said… while it may have been the conditions of the prison that drove the Far Outsider insane, except for the staff and that odd gap in his awareness, the fight had been incredibly predictable, whereas one didn’t rise among the ranks of the Mando’ade by being stupid. “Don’t let them close with you, use impact projectiles only, and concentrate fire, especially if any body part is exposed. Expect them to be sturdier than they seem. One-on-one, I would expect a Mando’ad _ori'ramikad_ to win, but I cannot speak to their squad tactics or strategic skill.”

Streng smiled and visibly relaxed at Maul’s words, though Kast and Saxon immediately started conferring about getting footage from Fehlaaur’anu‘nuruodo from any battles with the Far Outsiders that might have been recorded.

Thrawn, the Syndic, and Captain Parck, for their part, spoke quietly on the other side of the table for a few minutes—audible to Maul but in a language he did not know—before the Syndic also left, Thrawn moving to follow but stopping by Maul’s chair. “Would you mind joining me for a tour of the _Admonitor_ , Lord Maul?” He nodded at Parck. “Captain Parck can see the commanders back to their shuttle when they are finished.” Parck just smiled when Maul looked at him, apparently unbothered both by Maul’s stare and by the idea of being left alone in a room with several Mandalorians.

Maul was startled for a moment by the offer before he realized he was being ridiculous; he was to live on the _Admonitor_ for the foreseeable future, so of course Thrawn should want him familiar with it as soon as possible. The fact that it was Thrawn himself giving him the tour should not give him pause; the Grand Admiral had said they were to be allies. It would be foolish of him to start relegating Maul to be dealt with by his subordinates now. “Very well.”

The _Basilisk_ had been the first Star Destroyer Maul had ever boarded, and as expected of a mass-produced line of capital ships, the layout of the _Admonitor_ was more or less identical to what Maul remembered of the _Basilisk_. Thrawn’s tour mostly provided a chance for Maul to check that his powers of recollection remained largely infallible, as he had memorized the standard layout of an Imperial Star Destroyer immediately after his decision to accept Thrawn’s initial invitation to meet. The _Admonitor_ matched up until the point that Thrawn stopped outside the entrance to what was supposed to be the captain’s lounge and said, “And this is the secondary bridge.”

A hand to the door panel did in fact reveal what to all appearances was a slightly smaller recreation of the command deck.

“Your own modification, I assume,” said Maul. The standard Imperial Star Destroyer didn’t even _have_ a secondary bridge.

The corners of Thrawn’s eyes crinkled again as he said, “Not much call for entertaining important dignitaries in the Unknown Regions, Lord Maul.”

“As long as the prospective members of all those alliances you want to form are fine with uncomfortable chairs,” said Maul; he hadn’t really been able to tell himself, but Rahl had been unable to suppress a moue of displeasure upon sitting down in the conference room, and her background of all his commanders had been the most privileged.

At that, Thrawn actually chuckled. “Most of the species we will likely be talking to in the coming years could not even use chairs designed for humans; in my experience, the further we get from the Core Worlds, the more… alien, shall we say, people tend to be to the Imperial experience. Also…” He palmed the panel next to the other door that opened onto the private command deck, displaying the kind of comfortable furnishings Maul had been expecting of the room they presently stood in, albeit more understated than what he had seen on the _Basilisk_. “There are always other lounges. This is my private one, of course, but I never saw the point of disguising strategic alliances as close friendships by masquerading the captain’s lounge as a more intimate space; that was a charade that rarely held up well when exposed to Coruscant high-society xenophobia.”

Thrawn walked into the lounge with the obvious expectation that Maul would follow, and unable to come up with a reason why he shouldn’t, Maul did. And found himself stopping a step into the room in order to look around. What had not been at all obvious from the secondary bridge—probably a deliberate choice—but became immediately apparently upon passing through the doorway was that the walls were almost entirely covered in artwork. As was about a quarter of the floor space. … And about half the ceiling, when Maul chanced to look up.

It was, to Maul’s eyes, mostly hideous. Unattractive color combinations, skewed perspectives, and unpleasant textures were abundant. Two of the sculptures could easily be mistaken as fungal growths. There was a canvas that didn’t seem to have anything on it at all, just an expanse of blank white space that didn’t elucidate upon its meaning after closer examination.

Thrawn busied himself over at what appeared to be a small kitchenette while Maul inspected the artwork, walking over next to Maul only once Maul had spent over thirty seconds trying to figure out what about the blank canvas he wasn’t getting. He handed Maul one of the two steaming mugs he was carrying before saying, “It is quite beautiful if you can see ultraviolet light.”

The mug was pleasantly warm in his hand, though he couldn’t identify the scent. Something floral. “Can you?” Maul asked bluntly.

In response, Thrawn flicked a switch next to the painting, and immediately the room descended into darkness, the only light coming from a fixture set up underneath the canvas. “No. But fortunately there are ways around such problems.”

At first, Maul’s eyes were telling him that the fixture was just casting odd shadows onto the blank space, but after a few seconds they adjusted and he could see that the light—though odd and not entirely within what he normally considered the visible spectrum—was actually illuminating something previously hidden.

It was, undeniably, alien. Whether it was beautiful Maul did not know—he had never been good at recognizing such things—but it was… captivating, in its own way. It almost looked like a series of webs, but there was something of the artificial about them, as if they had been crafted out of metal, and some of the strands were almost impossible to see even with the light. But everything of the painting was connected, even if by only the most tenuous links. Even the parts that looked decayed and distorted.

Evocative, though it took Maul a minute to figure out what it reminded him of. “This is Verpine.”

Thrawn did not move, his eyes remaining riveted on the painting, but at Maul’s words, his ever-present serenity gained a distinct tinge of surprise. It did not last long, but a remnant of it was still present in Thrawn’s voice when he said, “Did you know, you’re the first person to ever guess that.”

“It wasn’t a guess.” Maul had been certain of it the second he spoke. It looked Verpine. It _felt_ Verpine. It was Verpine.

Thrawn flicked the overhead lights back on, but only took one step away to point to the sculpture present a meter behind the Verpine canvas. “And this?”

Maul barely glanced at it, as he had studied that sculpture earlier. A glinting sun. A scaled figure looking upwards. Some heating elements that pulsed from the sun in a rhythmic pattern, fading and returning over the course of about a minute; an accelerated simulation of the day-night cycle of a one-star system that was visible to Maul only because his eyesight extended into the infrared. Having actually been to Dosha, Maul didn’t bother thinking on it before saying, “Trandoshan.”

Another pulse of emotion from Thrawn, though this one was gone so quickly that Maul couldn’t even identify it. The Grand Admiral took a long sip from his mug and was still staring into it as he said, “Have you studied art?”

“No. But I’ve studied most of the sentient races that were members of the Republic.” Maul looked around the room again. “A lot of the artwork you have is archetypal.” It was actually a bit strange he could identify so much of it; artists were often not representative of the sensibilities of their species.

Thrawn opened his mouth as if to say something, before closing it and making his way over to the couch in the center of the room. He sat down carefully before gesturing to the seat next to him. “Please, I distract myself from the original reason I invited you here.” He waited until Maul had also seated himself before continuing, “I wanted to apologize for Captain Niriz’s earlier behavior. He is a talented officer, but only in his last year of service has he gained any real exposure to non-humans, and all of his knowledge of Mandalore comes from approved Imperial sources, which are… not terribly accurate when it does not serve the purposes of propaganda.”

Thrawn’s pattern of casual disregard for the Empire’s party line pointed to high confidence that his personal quarters were not under surveillance. Maul was focused enough on that fact that it took him a few seconds to figure out what Thrawn was referring to. “He thought all of the Mando’ade would be human.”

“The Mandalorian tradition of adoption is not one that comes up on the Imperial vids; it does not need to, when the Mandalore is a human and all of the others are only ever seen in full armor. Niriz is trying, but he… still has some prejudices to overcome.”

“Don’t worry about Streng.” Streng reserved his regard for a very select group of people and didn’t pay much attention to what anything else thought. “And if Rahl minded, she will address in her own time.” He doubted she had; she had probably thought it was amusing. She found most _aruetiise_ amusing when she wasn’t actively trying to kill them. “If you want this addressed, have your captain apologize to them, but it is unnecessary. They’ve worked for far worse.”

The corner of Thrawn’s mouth quirked. “I hope for this alliance to exceed expectations as opposed to merely pass over an extremely low bar.” He took another sip out of his mug before looking Maul in the eye for the first time since they had entered the room. “I will tell the captain to make his apologies, and if there is anything else I can do to smooth the transition and make you and your subordinates more comfortable, please do inform me.” He glanced down at Maul’s still-brimming mug. “Prepare you a beverage that you will actually drink, for example.”

Maul hesitated before deciding it was, after all, a fairly small concession. “I don’t know what this is.”

“It’s a hot drink brewed from the millaflower from Naboo. Non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated, but naturally sweet, and it helps lend itself to a calming mood. I occasionally drink a full pot myself when I have trouble sleeping.” Thrawn’s mouth quirked again. “Admittedly I got the dosage wrong on my first brewing attempt; I may have slept through a morning meeting with a Moff.”

It was partially to hide his own inadvertent mirroring of Thrawn’s expression that Maul finally brought the mug up to his lips and carefully swallowed a small amount. Floral, yes, but sweet as promised. It burned, slightly, in the back of his throat.

Maul had been thirty-three years old the first time he had tasted sweet—some piece of fruit offered to him by Savage in passing when they had been staking out Raydonia—and even after all of these years, it was…

Calming was accurate. So were many other words that Maul didn’t want to voice. Sometimes he was unfathomably stupid, covering up one emotion with something that was, in retrospect, far more damning.

“The fact that your first ever sip of millaflower tea was lukewarm points to my failings as a host. May I?” Maul kept his gaze on the wall—really on an indecipherable piece of hanging Duros glasswork—when he nodded, only half paying attention, which was how he somehow still managed to startle from Thrawn’s fingers brushing against his as the mug was delicately taken from his grasp.

The tea didn’t spill. Barely.

There was a pause.

“Would an apology be appropriate now?” Maul half-expected sarcasm, or at least some barely-veiled exasperation, however softened. Instead, Thrawn sounded… well, much the same as always, but there was an undercurrent of anxiety that had shot through him at Maul’s flinch that Maul was unable to ignore. Not fear, not even close; that might have been easier to handle. For a near-stranger to be worried _about_ him rather than afraid _of_ him was…

He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure he wanted to. But the question had very possibly been the most honest thing Thrawn had ever said to him, and so Maul couldn’t even summon his usually instinctive snarl in reply. There was no offense to be defensive _to_. “No.” It was just as much a sigh as a word. “No… it’s nothing.” He did not drag a hand across his face. He had more self-control than that. He had known Thrawn for twelve days; Thrawn was a _narudar_ , not someone he could actually trust, and to forget that for a second was to invite ruin. “New tea would be welcome, thank you.”

Still, that anxiety… it couldn't just be left unaddressed. So if Maul was careless in taking back the tea, let their fingers overlap for a second, maybe two while he made sure of his grip on the mug… if it was not unpleasing to sense some of the uncertainty bleed away from Thrawn’s normally unshakable calm, well. Temporary or not, Thrawn was an ally worth cultivating. It wasn’t worth thinking on beyond that.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a birthday present for captainmazzic, but at this point it is a Christmas present.
> 
> OK, so I know Thrass in _Star Wars_ canon is super dead. But in _Star Wars_ canon as I know it, Thrawn wasn't made a Grand Admiral until after the Battle of Yavin, so the new canon is already playing fast and loose with the EU, might as well keep with the _Star Wars_ tradition of only paying attention to canon when it's convenient for me. Also, as far as loose canon goes, Maul fighting and killing a Yuuzhan Vong in prison actually happened in a book called _Darth Maul: Lockdown_. It... isn't very good, but the fact that I found out that this fight was a real canon event _after_ I started writing this story seemed too much like serendipity not to include.
> 
> Just for reference, 'cause Maul doesn't really think about it, Xivin Rahl is a Falleen. Jedan Streng is... no one is entirely sure, but part human, part something purple with really impressive fangs.


End file.
